When J. the narrator, George, Harris and Montmorency the dog set off on their hilarious misadventures, they can hardly predict the troubles that lie ahead with tow-ropes, unreliable weather-forecasts, imaginary illnesses, butter pats and tins of pineapple chunks. Denounced as vulgar by the literary establishment, Three Men in a Boat nevertheless caught the spirit of the times. The expansion of education and the increase in office workers created a new mass readership, and Jerome's book was especially popular among the 'clerking classes' who longed to be 'free from that fretful haste, that vehement striving, that is every day becoming more and more the bane of nineteenth-century life.'
So popular did it prove that Jerome reunited his heroes for a bicycle tour of Germany. Despite some sharp, and with hindsight, prophetic observations of the country, Three Men on the Bummel describes an equally picaresque journey constrained only by 'the necessity of getting back within a given time to the point from which one started.'
Conceived as a fairly serious guide to amateur boating on the Thames in 1889, Jerome K. Jerome's best-known novel ended up as a hilarious account of the misadventures of three friends and a dog as they attempt to relax and enjoy themselves amid unreliable weather forecasts, imaginary illnesses, repellent cooking, and an unopenable can of pineapple chunks.
Three Men in a Boat was a terrific success for its author, and a surprisingly accurate portrayal of the age. George, Harris, and J., the narrator, were entertaining representatives of the new middle class, seeking to escape the dreary world of offices and desks during weekend trips out into the countryside. Jerome's heroes proved so popular that he brought them back for an equally picaresque bicycle tour of Germany, an adventure recorded in Three Men on the Bummel. The new Introduction by Jeremy Lewis describes the social context of the two books and the remarkable life of their author.
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